UDP group 7 practical weekend in Dublin

This past weekend, November 14 – 16, UDP group 7 met for a practical weekend in Dublin, Ireland, where they umpired matches from the Irish Senior Cup and the Leinster Cup. UDP member Kerri Targett sent us a report of the weekend’s work, which you can read below.

UDP in Dublin

We kicked off our weekend on Saturday morning with a meeting to discuss each of our summer experiences and any incidents we may have encountered over the summer. We had to prepare a 10 min presentation, which was a nice way to catch up with each other’s activities and a good way to introduce the weekend. It was a great opportunity to discuss the situations that we encountered and share our opinions/thoughts on the topics.

After our discussions we were then briefed on the Irish Cup rules and regulations and collected by our respective colleagues. Each member had a game in the Irish Senior cup.

Kerri Targett umpired Pembroke v Pegasus (1-2)

Ymkje van Slooten umpired Railway v UCD (3-2)

Jaroslav Suchocki umpired Railway v Glanane (1-0)

Pietro Galligani and Michiel Ottenumpired Pembroke v Monkstown (2-0)

The games were very enjoyable and provided a great opportunity to showcase what we have learned and improved on since the beginning of Group 7.
After the games we met to discuss the day, where we chatted about the things we were happy with, how we can improve our game and replicate the good stuff for our next one. Overall our mentors were very pleased with our performances and improvements since last year.

We then surprised our Mentor Michiel Bruning and Ymkje Van Slooten, who both had big birthdays a few weeks ago as well as Ymkje achieving her PhD, with presents and a wee glass of champagne. Carol Metchette then surprised us all with little presents congratulating us on our achievements over summer.

We finished off our day with a lovely and entertaining meal in the legendary Johnny Foxes,, and some local musicians, playing a collection of Irish Folk Music and jigs, entertained us. We were joined by Ray O’Connor, Tom Goode, Martin Canniffe and Geoff Conn and had an amazing evening with great food and company.

Sunday started early with a quick session where we discussed what we have done and achieved over the last year and a half and where we would like to be and what we would like to achieve for next year.

Ray O’Connor then joined us for a Q&A session. It was highly insightful and full of golf analogies, which included comparing a hockey tournament to a golf tournament. The saying ‘get on the back 9 with a chance of contention’ gave us a new outlook for tournaments with the idea that the first game didn’t ‘lose/win’ us anything and that we should aim to get better every match to be within a chance of winning/getting a good match on the last day. It was an interesting way of looking at it and definitely gave a new approach to preparing for our future tournaments.

Ray then answered some of our questions, which covered topics from off the ball incidents, to management of situations/players and dealing with colleagues that are not confident or have less experience. It was an extremely valuable experience and a really relaxed and open session.

We would like to thank Ray O’Connor for giving us his time and sharing his wealth of experience and knowledge.

The group then set off to watch another match, where our member Pietro was fortunate enough to get a second game in the Leinster Cup. We took this opportunity to look out for the things we had discussed previously and how we could use what we were seeing and compare it to our own games.

Group 7 would like to thank Irish Hockey and Leinster Hockey for our appointments to the Irish Senior Cup and Leinster Cup. And of course all of our colleagues, as well as Tom Goode and Ray O’Connor for helping with umpire coaching and providing welcoming Irish humor.

Once the game was over, we each started our journeys back home, but I think we will all be back to visit Ireland and experience Irish Hockey and hospitality again.
All of us would just like to say a massive thank you to our mentors Carol Metchette and Michiel Bruning for organizing and looking after us on another successful UDP group 7 weekend.